Northern Lights: The Soccer Trails
by Michael Arvaarluk Kusugak & Vladyana Krykorka
Description:
Publisher's description (Annik Press, 1993): In early winter, the Inuit people play soccer by starlight using a ball of stuffed caribou hide. According to legend, the souls of dead people also love to play soccer, using a huge frozen walrus head. They can be seen running across the sky in the aurora borealis, the northern lights, which in Inuktituk are called Aqsalijaat or Aqsarniit--Soccer Trails. Michael Kusugak is Inuk.
Resource format: Picturebook
Age recommendation: Kindergarten - Grade 3
Keywords: soccer, legends, Aurora Borealis, Indigenous games, Inuit, loss and grief, Inuit culture
Year of publication: 1993
Publisher information: Annik Press
Teaching and Learning Ideas
Our team collaborated with new teachers, alumni of the Werklund School of Education’s Bachelor of Education program, to create teaching and learning plans for texts in this website. With audiences ranging from Pre-Kindergarten to Post-Secondary, lesson plans across this resource address a wide range of school subject areas, inclusive approaches, and Indigenous education topics, such as the revitalization of Indigenous languages. As this website was designed with Undergraduate Programs in Education instructors, as well as teachers in mind, connections to UPE courses have been flagged on each lesson plan. These lessons are intended as a starting place for educators, to help you envision ways in which you might bring Indigenous literatures, as well as ways of knowing, being, and doing, into your teaching contexts. Please adapt, use, and share these lessons in ways that are generative for your teaching practice. We offer our sincere thanks to the dozens of new teachers who gifted us with these creative ideas!
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